


Maker, Remade

by SpaceWall



Series: Maedhros Remade [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Apologies, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Fourth Age, Fëanor’s Two Moms, Mother-Son Relationship, Rebirth, Redemption, Reincarnation, Reunions, Second Chances, Step-parents, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 09:59:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17098466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall
Summary: Fëanor is reborn, and speaks to the women in his life.





	Maker, Remade

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, what you would expect based on the tags.

Fëanor awoke. He was standing in the sunlight, and it hurt. It was too bright, too sharp. A poor substitute for the trees. But then, well, that was at least a little his fault.

“You were right, Yavanna!” He called. “I was wrong!” 

Flattery doesn’t suit you. 

“Does it earn me a straight path through your lands?”

Oh, nothing you could do would earn it. But my husband has a soft spot, so here we are. 

“Thank you.” 

Never mind thanking me, just respect the trees. Now, hurry up. Dear Irmo says you’ll want to be somewhere safe before the memory integration starts in earnest.

Fëanor set off at a run, over, under, and through the bramble and the trees. Time and space in the blessed realm could be… subjective, provided one had a Vala who tolerated them and a good grasp of the finer elements of the relationship between speed and perception of time. And so, in a mentally and physically exhausting half-hour, he was able to find himself outside a small Vanyarin-style manor, high in the mountains. Raising one fist, he pounded on the door as hard as he could. 

Indis opened it, wearing nothing but a bathrobe, swore violently- when had she learned that?- and pulled him inside. 

“Did Nienna forget that you needed a new body?” She demanded. Fëanor found he didn’t have the words to answer her. She maneuvered him onto a couch, and made him lie down. “Talk to me, Curufinwë. You look like death warmed over. Should I call a healer?”

He managed to shake his head, and said through teeth gritted against the convulsions that shook his body. “Lord Námo said. If Irmo could not fix it. I would be back with him soon.”

“Do you need to go to Lórien? Why are you here?”

“Lórien will come to me.”

She sighed, long-suffering, and brought him a pillow and a whole pile of blankets. “You had better recover and explain this to me. Your mother will be terribly upset if she finds you’ve been killed on my watch again.”

Fëanor tried to say that she hadn’t actually been watching the first time, and instead found himself pulled under into a deep sleep. 

His dreams were violent, and they burned. Sometimes, he didn’t know who he was. Sometimes, he knew who he was, and it wasn’t Curufinwë Fëanáro. Sometimes it wasn’t even Fëanor. Sometimes she was Nerdanel, and she was alone, reaching out in sleep for something she couldn’t quite feel, and being pushed away. Sometimes he was Maedhros, shivering in the darkness. Sometime he was Fingolfin, a ball of grief and anger and noble fury. Sometimes they were Ambarussa, huddled close, looking for comfort in the cold, featureless halls. He was. He was bloodied- fleeing- weeping- shouting- selfish- watching- laughing- burning- burning- burning- burning- 

Awake. 

Fëanor surged out from under the blankets, trying to throw them off. It was too warm. Much too warm. Where was he? What was happening? A pair of delicate white hands came, and pulled the rest of the blankets off of him, and he sat upright on a strange bed, in a strange room. But it did not belong to a stranger. 

“Thank you, Irmo,” Indis murmured, under her breath. “You scared me, Curufinwë. Do you know that you were unconscious for almost a full solar week? I was this close to trying to carry you to Lórien myself.” She held first-finger and thumb extremely close together.

Fëanor rubbed at his eyes, trying to adjust to the sudden brightness of the world. “Thank you, for letting me stay.”

“Well, since you collapsed in my sitting room, there was little choice in the matter.”

This was off to a very bad start. Fëanor considered. “That was wrong. Let me start again. Thank you, for looking after me for a week, in spite of the fact that, in all our previous interactions, I have treated you very badly. Additionally, I got two of your children and all of your grandchildren save one killed. I do not deserve the kindness you have shown me.”

Her eyes pierced him. “If you came straight here from being dead, you should not remember that.”

Clever. When had he forgotten that Indis was quick? “No. I should not. No other would. But it was decided that the risk should be taken, of the memories being too much strain and sending me back. Better that than being who I was.”

“I has assumed it would be because of your mother,” she said, and leant down to pick the rest of the blankets off the floor. 

“My mother?” Fëanor asked, instinctively ready to take offence. 

“She remembers too.”

That made sense, in a way. Míriel lived between. She was living and dead. If anyone could remember, it was her. “Do you know, then? That Atar tells everyone dead the truth about your relationship?”

“I suppose that depends on what you think the truth is,” Indis said, evasively.

“I think that the truth is that you were in a relationship with both my parents. I think that my mother would have been happy you and my father were together. I think you were all being idiots when you said nothing to me of the truth! If I had known the truth-”

Indis sat hard on the edge of the bed. “Yes. I know. Míriel did mention that, once or twice, when she got back. Not that we told any of the others either, mind.”

That reminded him. “Do you know where she is? Ammë?” 

Indis grinned. “Not a day’s ride from here, by now. Not all of us can bend space and time to our will, but once I sent word you were here, Eru himself could not have kept her away.” 

“Oh.” Somehow, even knowing they were together, it had not occurred to him that they would speak of things privately, across distance. That Indis would summon Míriel to see her son. But of course she would. Of course. 

Something in the moment broke. Indis stood. “I’ll make you something to eat. You should have a bath- or a shower, Turgon came by a few years ago and updated all the plumbing. Hot water runs from the left dial, cold from the right. First door down the hall on your left.”

She fled before Fëanor could ask her what a ‘shower’ was. He pried himself out of bed in the interests of finding out, and discovered that showers were a clearly superior replacement for baths in terms of efficiency. When he was done, he discovered that Indis had left him a tunic and pants. Fingolfin’s, probably. Of her children, he was the closest to Fëanor in most dimensions. 

When he came into the kitchen, Indis was frying eggs and singing under her breath. It was so familiar. He could have been twenty again, in his father’s home. He almost expected Findis to run in on her little legs, dragging Nolofinwë along behind her. 

“What did you think of the shower?” She asked, not turning to look at him. 

“Brilliant.” 

Indis laughed. “I thought you would like that. There are many innovations from Beleriand that you may find appealing. Every so often Turgon would come, and tell me one thing or another that I absolutely needed, and I would always think-” She cut herself off unexpectedly. 

It took Fëanor a second to realize what she was going to say. “You would think of me.”

She nodded. “Curufinwë, can I ask you something?”

“I think you already did, but yes, you may.”

Deciding the eggs were done, she scooped them carefully onto a plate, and handed it to him. Fëanor was the sort of person who liked the ends of loaves of bread, with his eggs at any rate and Indis had remembered. She handed him a knife and some butter, and joined him at the small kitchen table. 

“Why me? I mean, of all the people in Valinor, why did you come to me?”

It was, in truth, very simple. “If I went to anyone who had died, it would have been too hard. To look in their eyes, and know that they did not remember. Could never remember. I will have to, in time, but I cannot today. I am not strong enough. I also knew that you would do me no ill. Out of love for my parents, if little else.”

There was something intangible in Indis’s eyes. Could it have been grief? For her lost children, maybe? “Curfinwë, if you think that the only reason I would do you no ill is because I love your parents, you do not know me at all.” 

Oh. Oh- “My apologies. For a second there, it felt so much like home that I fell into the old ways. It will not happen again.” 

“You do not have to pretend for my sake.” She stood as if to leave. No. This was not the outcome he had wanted. 

“Indis, please. Stay and let me say something.” 

She sat back down, gracefully. “You always did like an audience.” He let the jibe slide, though he thought privately that he was not the only one thinking too much of the past. 

“I spent a significant part of my life feeling broken. All of it that I remember, really. You must know what it felt like, to have all of Valinor know your private business, to see them whispering whenever you walked into the room. For me, they were always thinking of her. Many of them grieved. To a child, it always felt like they were talking about what was wrong with me. Not what was wrong with the world, you understand, but what was wrong with me. How I killed her. I wanted someone to blame. I wanted to rage against someone. To make them hurt like I hurt. I picked Fingolfin, and I picked you. This does not excuse the things I did or said. I was wrong. Particularly, I was wrong to not see that everything they said of me, they said of you in crueler, harsher ways. I should have known you were an ally against that, someone who loved me. But it was easier to think of you as another enemy. Someone who was easy to hurt.

“The whole of Valinorian society was broken, I think. To say that there was one way to be lovers. One way to be a family. One chance at happiness. From what I heard, they did that better in Beleriand. Maedhros found a way to be happier there, and he told me that Maglor did too, in himself if not in his marriage. They had so many new words. Ward. Foster family. Adoption. Partner. Caranthir told me that some of the Moriquendi had a word, a title, like spouse or lover, for the person with whom you were in a committed relationship after your spouse or spouses died. I think maybe we would all have been happier if we stopped caring so much about what other people thought of our families. But we are all products of our societies, and so I am a product of Valinor, and for that, I can only be sorry.” 

Indis covered her mouth with one hand, and was quiet for a long time. It seemed like she was trying not to cry.

“Was it that bad a speech?” Fëanor asked.

“Your eggs are getting cold,” she told him. 

Ever the dutiful son, he buttered his toast, and began to eat. Indis disappeared for a while, and had composed herself by the time she returned, though she was still fidgeting with a delicate handkerchief, embroidered in cloudlike patterns. 

“Could you tell me about the family?” He asked her. “I have not had news from Valinor in… well, maybe ever. How is everyone? Marriages? Births? Did Finrod and that Vanya lady of his work out?” 

She sat across from him again. “They did, as a matter of fact. Do you have a preferred order? It is a big family, and it has been a few ages.” 

Fëanor considered this. “Eldest to youngest? Though that requires you remembering the order of the grandchildren relative to each other. I am not sure of it, and half of the children in question are mine. Eldest to youngest, by family?”

Indis grinned. “Well, the eldest is Curufinwë-”

“You know what I meant!” He paused for a second before adding, “Maybe, save my family for last? I do not believe that once we have begun with them, we will ever finish.”

She nodded solemnly. “Well in that case, Findis is first. She never did end up marrying; it was not to her taste. She was a great help to Arafinwë the first few years in Tirion, but once Ingoldo returned to us, she was very happy to take a retreat to study with Vána. And then she ended up staying. I see her a couple times a year, and she writes often enough. I believe she spends much of her time in ceaseless bickering over ethics with Melian, because she is your sister, even if neither of you would ever think it. Nolofinwë is in Tirion now, working on integration with incoming Sindarin and Silvan populations. He complains bitterly over the workload, and likes it too much to quit. He and Anairë are happily reunited. Not much other news of them. They have both become terribly boring in comparison to their eldest.

“Fingon left for Middle Earth as soon as he realized Maedhros was alive, of course, being joined at the hip as they have ever been. They have both been there for a few decades, but, according to Maglor, are perfectly fine.”

This was why getting into his branch of the family was a bad idea. “Maglor made it back?”

Indis nodded. “I have not seen him in person, but Míriel may have. My understanding is that he and Celumë are cordial, but not together at the moment. Apparently Fingon found him, and Elrond Peredhel brought him back.” 

Fëanor laughed. He couldn’t help it. Fingon. Again. Indis gave him an odd look. But of course, she would not know much of Beleriand, and could not know of their actions in death. 

“Fingon seems to have spent his whole life saving my children, from everything. It seems a central feature of his personality at this stage. I owe him a great deal. You said that he and Maedhros were still in Middle Earth?”

She nodded. “They are. Now, you must remember that all my gossip is second or third hand, but as I understand it, they wanted to explore it as it was freed from the shadow. To have a chance to really do good there.”

That was the sort of thing that would make Maedhros happy. He loved a good story, a romance, a tale of love. And what love was greater than that of the elves for their world? It made Fëanor a little sad that they would not see each other again soon. But if Maedhros was happy? Really happy? Then, it was about time he started doing something for himself. 

“Curufinwë,” Indis said, interrupting his thoughts, “there is someone at the door.”

For a second, his mind went completely blank. Because it couldn’t be, could it? It didn’t feel real. A dream, surely. A good dream, but a dream nonetheless. In life, he would never have been able to sit and speak peacefully with Indis for so long. And his mother could not be there. She never could have been.

“Fëanor,” Indis murmured, and put a hand on his shoulder. “If you are not ready, she can wait. Your comfort matters to her more than just about anything. And if it did not, I would make her wait.”

“Will waiting make it any better?”

Indis shrugged. “If you waited more and I waited less, we might both be happier people. But in this case? No. I do not believe it would.”

“Can you-” He waved his hand vaguely, unable to finish the sentence. 

She went to the door, and Fëanor listened as it swung open, heard Indis say, “Melda, he is awake, and he says he remembers everything of being dead.”

In response, she received a gasp, and what sounded like a kiss that Fëanor chose to ignore. A voice he had never heard before, and yet sounded so familiar said, “where is he?”

“Come,” said Indis, “and be kind.” 

Her last words were in Vanyarin, a highly impractical though very musical tongue that had been falling out of favour when Fëanor was a boy. He wondered if it had suffered a resurgence with the Noldor in exile. He imagined Telerin had. Indis probably didn’t know he spoke it. And the truth was, there was no particular reason to, save that Fëanor hated not knowing. He stood, like he was waiting for a king or a judge, and watched Míriel enter, leaning just slightly on Indis’s arm. 

She looked so much like his children. That was what surprised him the most. It was not just Celegorm’s hair, white and wild, flowing loose around her head in a way that always made it look like she had been running. It Maedhros’s sly smile, and the shape of the twins’ eyes. It was Caranthir’s skintone and Maglor’s voice- that was what was familiar. It was not his own memories of his mother. It was that she sounded like Maglor. And no surprise. He certainly had not gotten his musical ability from his parents. 

“Amya,” he whispered, and heard his own voice crack like a child’s. 

She released Indis’s arm, and swept him up into a tight hug. “Hinya.”

He was taller than her, and in the hug the top of her head reached only to his cheekbones. She was taller than Indis, but shorter than Nerdanel, he thought, oddly. It felt different, but right, in way he could neither explain nor describe. It was so good to have her there. 

“Forgive me,” she asked of him, “for leaving you, please, can you forgive me?”

As if there were anything to forgive. “Always. In every respect. Can you forgive me, for what I have wrought? For the things I have said and done to those you love.”

She pulled away, looking into his eyes and running callused hands over his face. They were worn like his own hands were worn. Like Nerdanel’s were worn. From years of dedication to the pursuit of craft. “That is not mine to forgive, Fëanáro.”

She was right. It was not hers to forgive. That pain belonged to Indis, and to her children. 

Fëanor let her hold him, and wept until he had no more tears. 

He stayed with Indis and Míriel for three more days. It was easy to settle into a rhythm with them, but hard to watch how easy they were with each other. Harder still was how guilty they both looked whenever he caught them exchanging sweet glances or gentle touch. It pained him to think that he was ruining something so inately precious to someone he loved. 

All good things must come to an end, and so in time, he had to leave. They all knew where he had to go, and none of them particularly looked forward to it. Míriel, on horseback, went with him down the mountain, and there, at the bottom, they parted ways. For duty and rightness. 

“I am glad,” Míriel said, looking back at him, “that Indis has been your mother.” 

“I do not know if I would go so far as to say that. We have not always been kind to each other.”

She smiled sadly at him. “Not always. But if you had met any of your grandmothers, you would know that there is much of love and kindness in your relationship, more than for many. You argue, you snipe and bicker. But she defends you anyways. And you went to her, because she feels safe, for you. That tells me everything I need to know.”

Almost none of his grandparents’ generation had come to Valinor, Rúmil being a notable exception. Fëanor had never known them, and neither Finwë nor Indis spoke of their parents at all. It was little surprise to learn that Míriel felt the same about her relationship with her own. 

“Do you think that in time, we can make something out of this? That I might be able to put together the family I broke?”

There was anger in her eyes then, and Fëanor knew with absolute certain where the temper he had passed on to Celegorm and Caranthir had come from. “You are not responsible for breaking this family, Fëanáro. No matter what you did. You were our son, and it was our responsibility to raise you, to teach you, and to let you know that you were loved. Never blame yourself for that which we failed to give you.” She turned away, hiding her face. “Now stop stalling, and go do what you need to do.”

It was hard to pull away, to move through the world in the way he had to travel to Indis’s. But he did it. For duty, and for love. Elves and Valinor existed outside the round world, but elves were of it still, in their hröar, and in pulling forward as he did, he mirrored its form, bending himself around the shape of Arda. He was the greatest of the Noldor, not by birth, but because he had the remarkable ability to look at Arda differently than the rest. It was a blessing and a curse. It allowed him to break languages into their component parts and understand. It had allowed him to make the Silmarils. But it had also shown him the dysfunction of Valinor when no one else could see it, and there had been much evil that had wrought. 

Letting the bonds of his mind guide him, he eventually stopped in a garden, just behind a workshop. Someone was inside, judging by the noise, and working stone. Fëanor swallowed his fear, raised a hand, and knocked as hard as he could.

“Just a second, Ambarussa!” Nerdanel called. 

Fëanor decided that caution was the better part of valour, and said nothing. He looked around. He could tell that this was Nerdanel’s home. It was both put together and chaotic. The gardens were tended, but the selection of plants was nothing anyone in Tirion would have approved of, a little too wild, too much colour and smell. Fëanor liked it. 

“I thought you were going hunting,” Nerdanel said, and then she saw him. She covered her mouth to muffle a shriek 

Fëanor held up a hand. “Nerdanel, before you say anything-”

She slapped him, hard. It stung. “You bastard! You moron! You selfish, arrogant, ungrateful, useless-”

Well, that was a little harsh. “Nerdanel! You should know that I remember being dead.” 

There was a time when he would have teased her mercilessly for the way her jaw dropped at that. “Oh.” 

“Yes, ‘oh’. I know everyone else will have forgotten, but I remember. Well, actually, my mother remembers, but she lives between, so that is not precisely the same.”

“Maedhros remembers,” Nerdanel muttered. She pushed past him to take a seat on a stone bench.

That was interesting. Fëanor wondered if there was something in the blood that made it more possible for them. But it was not important, in that moment. 

“Can you tell me where the kitchen is? I can make tea. You seem like you could use some tea.” 

She told him where the kitchen was, and he brought her tea.

“Did you not make any for yourself?” She asked him. 

He shook his head. “It seemed wrong, to invite myself to partake in what is yours without invitation. I came to apologize, and to ask you what you want going forward, in terms of our marriage, and our children. Then you never have to see me again.”

She wrapped her hands around the mug, and held it close to her breast. 

“Did you come right here, from Mandos?”

How to tell her? “No. The process that allowed me to keep my memories was draining, of my fëa. I needed time, to sleep. I would not have wanted to force you to keep me, nor any of the rest of our family.”

She nodded. “Maedhros slept after too, for a month. But he told me he thought that was a symptom of the bond breakage and the exhaustion.”

“Bond breakage?” Fëanor could not help but demand. “Are they alright? What happened?” 

“Your son thought it was a good idea to protect his husband from Sauron by completely severing the ties of their marriage.” 

Poor Fingon. That must have been unimaginably painful. “Indis said they were together on the far shore. Were they able to mend it?” 

Nerdanel’s eyes narrowed at him. “Indis said?” 

And that was the trouble with getting distracted. “I stayed with her and my mother, while I was recovering. But please, just tell me, were he and Fingon able to mend it?”

“They were.” Her eyes never moved off of him. “You seem oddly calm about Fingon’s involvement in all this. And Indis’s, come to that. Sit down, and start from the beginning. Tell me who you are now, really, and how you came to be him.”

Fëanor wanted so badly to ask the same of her, who she had become in the centuries since he had seen her last. He wanted to know whether she had any new scars, new calluses on her hands. He wanted to feel them. Fëanor imagined relearning life in the tips of her fingers, in the taste of her lips. But that was gone now, and past, and would never again be his. He swallowed his grief, and sat beside her. 

“I am still Curufinwë, I think, after everything. Seeing Indis reminded me of that. But I am Fëanor now, too. I have noticed that many of those who went to Beleriand think of the different names as different parts of themselves. Maedhros feels this most strongly, I think, but I have observed it in almost all of them. It is an easy habit to pick up, separating yourself from the person you were. Curufinwë slayed kin. Curufinwë left his brothers. Curufinwë swore an oath. But I am him and he is me. I am also Fëanor. Fëanor who died. Fëanor who waited. Fëanor who learned.

“I reconciled with all of them, in Mandos. In the beginning, it was a matter of need. The first few who died, Elenwë, Argon, Lalwen, they did not know what to do, or where to go. Atto and I helped them. We had to. Then more came, and they looked after each other. Aredhel. Aikanáro. Angrod and Eldalótë. Nolvo. I watched and waited, hoping and praying for news of my sons. I received very little, save from Aredhel, those first few years. I knew about Maedhros’s captivity and abdication, and the general state of Celegorm, and little else of the others save their locations. Nolvo knew more, I think, but he did not talk to me then. It was when Fingon died that I next received news, and little of it was good. He told me everything, even if he hated me, because Maedhros would have wanted him to. I was too desperate to hate him. I needed news like fish need water.” 

Nerdanel finally seemed to remember that she was holding tea, and drank deeply, irrespective of the temperature.

“And then Doriath happened.”

Fëanor signed. “And then Doriath happened, and I really saw for the first time what I had done, to our sons. You- well, they forgot being dead. I suppose that in a sense you did see them right after.”

“Not really,” Nerdanel said, with a shake of her head. “The memories are hidden, but there. They change perceptions of things. Ideas, identities. Fingolfin proved it definitively, and the university did a whole study. You cannot create, but you can learn from others. Languages. Speech pattern changes, that was what he noticed.” 

Fëanor found it impossible not to smirk. “He could not resist calling me ‘Náro, could he?”

Nerdanel smiled down into her tea. “No. Drove himself half mad trying to figure out if he had picked the habit up before dying. Asked the whole family if we knew the name. None of us did, of course. I had a good laugh over it, at the time.” 

“So they remember some, but not the truth of the thing. I imagine Amrod and Amras were in an awful state when you got them back. And poor Curufin, having to hear about what happened to Celebrimbor for a second time. That was one of the worst parts, the first time. It was usually worse when they died slowly. Not always, though. Gil-galad did terribly. He was convinced Sauron had won, and it was his fault.” 

Nerdanel shook her head as if to clear it. “It is so strange, hearing you say the Sindarin names. I never pictured that, when I pictured this.” 

How had she pictured it? Had she pictured throwing him out of her house? He wondered if it had been a daydream, or a nightmare. An unhoused spirit returned to torment her and her children. Perhaps he should have stayed away. 

“Artanáro then. Telperinquar. Atarinkë-”

“No need to list them. I trust that you remember. You are certainly not under obligation to recreate my childish fantasy.” 

Childish fantasy. Could it be- “Nenya- Nerdanel, may I ask you something?”

“Ask away,” she said, a little bitterly. 

“What childish fantasy?”

She turned away from him. “I was hoping that was not the question. The childish fantasy where you sweep me off my feet and tell me all the ways in which you are sorry, all the ways in which our children are alright, and nothing has changed, and I am as beautiful as Laurelin fading into Telperion, and you never wanted to leave me, and all these years of being alone have been nothing but a horrible, horrible dream. But here we are, in real life, and I cannot even sense your mind in mine, and our children are not alright, and everything has changed, and I am old and lonely and exhausted beyond words.”

She was so beautiful. More so, for the dignity with which she wore her long suffering. She had a grace to her that no other elf Fëanor had ever known could have matched. He hoped she did not mind his touch as he turned Nerdanel’s face to meet his own.

“Well, I would not sweep you off your feet without asking, but I can try if you would like. As for the ways in which I am sorry, I should have started with that. I am sorry for my judgement of Indis. I am sorry for my treatment of all my brothers and sisters, but Fingolfin in particular. I am sorry for making Curufin marry too young, but I am not sorry that Celebrimbor came of it. I am sorry that I made Maedhros and Celegorm feel they had to hide their friendships with Fingon and Aredhel. I regret that I made Maedhros feel like I was not proud of him. I always have been. I have always been proud of all my children, and I wish more than almost anything that they had known how much I love them. I want to tell them, now, to say it right to their faces. I wish I had listened to you, when you saw death in Amrod’s future. I wish I had listened to you, when you cautioned me against my covetous nature. I regret abandoning you, twice. I regret the oath more than words could ever capture or express. I am sorry for slaying kin, and if I were to do it all again, I would not leave anyone behind. I regret not listening to Maedhros, who got all his good sense from you. I am more sorry than anything for leaving them there alone. I should not have died and left them to face it alone.”

“I hate you,” Nerdanel told him, and buried her head in his shoulder with a sob.

Fëanor stroked a hand over her hair, and, when she did not push him away, wrapped his arms around Nerdanel and cradled her close.

As best he could, he told her, “our children may not be alright now, but they will be. I have seen them healing, and I know they will continue to do so. They are loving, and are loved. No one can say more than that, in the end. And if I were to try, I would say that they have been remarkably brave, in facing the things they were forced to do with dignity and responsibility.”

Nerdanel pulled her head away to say, “they are not the same.”

“No,” admitted Fëanor, “they are not. But it would not be fair of us to expect them to be, after so much time has passed. Even not counting being dead, since you saw Maedhros last, he has been maimed, tortured for thirty years, married, and raised two children.”

“I would rather not think about that,” she said, soft as a summer breeze. 

And, for the first time in their conversation, Fëanor felt a stab of anger. “Well, too bad. We do not have the liberty of not thinking about it. It happened. To our son. Ignoring it, ignoring him, is hurtful and demeaning. Maedhros deserves to be seen, and to never be expected to have healed differently or more. He is not the same, and I would not ask it of him to be other than as he is for one heartbeat. As long as Maedhros is happy with the person he has become- and I think he is- I will support him. Always.”

Nerdanel grabbed him hard by the shoulders, and met his eyes carefully, searching for something. She was terrifying, and awesome. Just as Fëanor was beginning to feel a little afraid, she said, “good!” And kissed him full on the mouth.

Fëanor had been holding the bond back successfully, but with her lips on him, her hands strong on his body, it was too much. For just a second, his control slipped, and he saw what she had felt, the years of nothing, nothing, nothing. Maglor, missing, missing, missing. Maedhros-Celegorm-Caranthir-Curufin-Amras-Amrod gone. Celebrimbor, gone.  
Fingon, bringing beautiful-terrible-unbearable-needed hope. 

Fëanor pushed her arms away, and leapt back. “Sorry. I did not mean to lose control.”

“Lose control?” Nerdanel demanded, in an odd tone. “Fëanáro, you lived in my mind for our entire marriage. Why can I not feel you now?”

Fëanor clenched his fists. “Nenya, if I let myself have this now, I do not know if I will ever be able to let go.”

Nerdanel stood too, snaking a hand around to rest on his lower back. “Then I have a solution for you. Never, ever let go.”

She kissed him again, and he held tight to the bond, and they became one.

**Author's Note:**

> I fucking love this version of Fëanor he’s so oddly wholesome, and also would kill a man for the people he loves.
> 
> Hinya means 'my child', and Melda means ‘lover’. 
> 
> Christmas update: More Indis, but Dawn!Verse and I wrote it 4 months ago.


End file.
